Fireworks Are Newest Target of China’s Austerity Drive

City cleaners sweep away used fireworks amid the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations in Xuchang, central China’s Henan province.

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As China’s official austerity campaign grinds on, not even the country’s Four Great Inventions are sacred.

Not content with putting a moratorium on new government offices and exhorting cadres to limit their banquets to “four dishes and a soup,” the killjoys in Beijing have struck at the very heart of Chinese culture, with moves to cut public spending on fireworks.

A man burns a stick of firecrackers during Lunar New Year celebrations in Beijing.

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The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection has decided government departments and state-owned enterprises are no longer to hand out fireworks, firecrackers, flowers or other goodies at holiday times, according to reports on state-run Xinhua news agency, which were reposted to the government’s main website on Thursday.

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The regular orgy of high explosives during Chinese New Year and other major holidays—with small children lighting fuses all around and the scent of cordite hanging thick in the air—is something to behold. But the deafening spectacle came under threat earlier this year, after some state media led a campaign against fireworks, fearing they would add to China’s worsening air pollution. During February’s Lunar New Year celebration, fireworks sales in Beijing fell 45% from the year prior.

But will the government’s latest austerity efforts mean another blow to the time-honored custom (and a respite for the country’s traumatized dogs)?

The markets don’t seem to think so. Shares in Hunan’s Panda Fireworks Group were up 1.5% on the previous day’s close as of Friday afternoon, while Anhui Leimingkehue was up 0.7% and Hunan Nanling Industry Explosive Material notched up a 0.5% gain. All of that compares with a 0.5% drop in the benchmark Shanghai composite.

As one analyst noted, even without public funds, people will still buy fireworks with their own money.

“It’s not a market that’s completely driven by public expenditure,” said Simon Wang, a stock analyst at Guoyuan Securities. “Private consumption is very big as well.”

Since taking over as China’s president in March, Xi Jinping has devoted much of his energy to a high-profile austerity and anti-corruption campaign, aimed at reinvigorating the Communist Party and improving its image among China’s jaded populace.

Some suggest the ban on gifts of fireworks, which can cost as much as 1,000 yuan ($164) a box, may be aimed at shutting down one more avenue for corruption rather than discouraging enjoyment of an ancient Chinese invention.

“Either the government is buying fireworks and giving them out to employees as benefits, which is unlikely, or it is being used to mask expenditures in other areas,” said Angel Feng of research firm ChinaScope Financial.

China’s Ministry of Finance wasn’t immediately able to put a figure on government firework purchases.

A fire at the headquarters of state-owned broadcaster China Central Television in 2009 offers a cautionary tale about the dangers of playing with explosives without adequate supervision. Executives at the TV station organized a New Year’s fireworks display that went awry, setting fire to a new building that had been designated to house a cultural center and luxury hotel. An investigation later found CCTV’s senior management liable for the accident.

As luck would have it the “Big Underpants” building next-door, the broadcaster’s headquarters that is the most recognizable shape on the Beijing skyline, came through unscathed.

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